Chapter 32
ADELINE
Jennifer and Lu sat side by side on the massive sectional in the living room while Amber and I hovered nearby. Zach paced in front of the windows overlooking the pool, one hand on his hip while he ran the other repeatedly through his hair.
Tension hung thick in the room, Amber constantly shooting me simultaneously apologetic, curious, and excited smiles. Being as young as they were, Jennifer and Lu didn’t really understand what was going on, but they’d caught me and Zach in the same bed.
Just snuggling—thank God—but that was bad enough. Honestly, I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole.
Jennifer looked mostly fascinated by the scandal, but Lu was in a very bad mood, which was making things significantly worse. She kept scowling at us, her arms folded tightly over her chest and her tiny body trembling with rage.
“You had a sleepover,” Jennifer announced, matter of fact. “You probably even watched a movie in the theater room without us.”
Lu glared at me before turning toward Zach. “Did you have popcorn too? Tell the truth.”
I wasn’t even sure what to say, but when I looked helplessly over at him, he seemed equally unsure. Frankly, that wasn’t comforting at all. In fact, when a Westwood looked like that, it was a little bit alarming.
How come they always seem to have the answers, except for right now? Come on, man.
Amber sat in one of the armchairs, her expression smug when she wasn’t sending me some kind of smile that said she’d be demanding an explanation—and details—later on. I swallowed hard, trying to gather my thoughts.
Finally, I realized that the truth was probably my best option but an age-appropriate, understandable version of it. Well, this is going to be unpleasant.
“You know that story I’ve told you so many times, about the princess and the two princes?”
Jennifer’s face brightened. “The one with the princess who fell in love with the prince, but had to marry a prince from a different kingdom instead?”
“Yes,” I said softly. I could feel Zach watching me. I kept my attention on the girls, though. Even as my cheeks warmed at the thought of explaining this in front of him. “Do you remember how the story ends?”
Jennifer nodded confidently. “The princess was happy even though she also felt sad. She missed her prince, but she got the best thing in the world for marrying the other prince, two more princesses.”
Tears pricked my eyes, but Lu just crossed her arms tighter. “That’s a bedtime story. It’s not bedtime now.”
I glanced at Zach before drawing in a shaky breath. “I know, but see, I’m like that princess. A long time ago, I loved a prince very much, but I married a different one instead, and even though it made me really sad, I got you two because of it. I wouldn’t change that for anything.”
Jennifer blinked a few times, clearly confused. Lu stared up at me with suspicion in her eyes. They were obviously trying to assemble the puzzle but in their own, childlike way.
Amber pursed her lips at me from across the room, silently encouraging me to continue. Unfortunately, my brain had abandoned ship. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out, and the silence stretched for so long that panic started clawing its way up my spine.
Zach met my gaze and held it intently. He’d thrown on a clean shirt with the sweats he’d been wearing when I’d woken up, but his hair was still mussed from a night of having my hands in it every couple hours and his lips were still bee stung.
Neither of us had expected such a rude awakening, but something passed between us now, a silent understanding, perhaps, of the fact that I’d been telling the girls my own story for so long. It took him a beat, but then he stepped up to the plate.
He stopped pacing and slowly crouched down in front of them, his forearms braced over his knees. “I was the first prince. Your mom and I were really, really good friends for a long time before she knew your dad.”
“Before we were born?” Jennifer asked, like she couldn’t comprehend there had been a time that long ago.
“Yes,” he replied calmly. “Back when dinosaurs still roamed the earth and cavemen were running around.”
She burst into a fit of giggles and even Lu’s mouth twitched a little, but then her eyes narrowed again. One day, she would make a great detective if that was what she decided to do with her life. She was already looking at us like she was interrogating a murder suspect.
Zach was undeterred by her glare, his expression open and steady while I felt like I was about to drown. “It’s been a few years, but I’d like for us to be friends again.”
Jennifer accepted this information in stride, but Lu turned to me. I finally managed to offer her a soft smile and jerk my chin in a nod. “I’d like that too.”
I looked between the girls and tried to steady myself. If Zach could do it, so could I. Drawing in another deep breath, I walked back over to the couch they were on and dropped into a crouch beside him. “I’m going to be spending more time with Zach from now on, and he’s going to be… around.”
While the explanation was gentle, it lacked a vital piece of information.
This was the part where I should tell them we were getting married.
They were getting to know him and even Lu was coming around.
We still had some time left in Wisconsin to figure things out before we’d crash back into reality, and we were on the topic, so I could easily segue into it.
I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words, afraid it would be too much for them just after they’d found us in bed together. Especially because Lu looked horrified to learn that he would be around.
“Why?” she asked, frowning deeply. “What does that mean?”
Honestly, it was a valid question. I even opened my mouth to just say it outright, that he was going to be their stepfather, but before I could force the words out, Zach stepped in again.
“Because I love your mom and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being the prince who didn’t get the princess. ”
Shock trickled through me, so intense that I nearly fell over. For a second, I thought that maybe he’d just said it to assure them, but when he turned his head to look at me, he seemed completely sincere.
The word love bounced through my skull in a dizzying echo as our gazes clashed and held. Love. That’s not past tense, but he didn’t say loved. He said love.
When I stared at him, he just stared right back at me, still calm, but his chin lifting ever so slightly, almost like he was challenging me to argue. Which was definitely a lot less terrifying than admitting I still loved him too.
Amber must’ve noticed the tension rising between us because she suddenly jumped to her feet. “Well, I always knew Zach was a prince. I mean, this place can’t be a castle because it doesn’t have a drawbridge, obviously, but it is a palace. Now, who wants to help me make pancakes?”
Both of Jennifer’s hands shot into the air and she was up moments later. “Me! Me! Me!”
Lu kept staring at Zach suspiciously for another few seconds before sliding off the couch. “I only like pancakes shaped like dinosaurs now.”
“Perfect,” Amber replied without skipping a beat. “How do you feel about misshapen dinosaurs?”
She put a hand on each girl’s shoulder, gently but efficiently guiding them out of the room as fast as she could, Lu’s arguments for how to make the dinosaur perfectly shaped ringing out behind them.
The second they disappeared around the corner, Zach rose slowly to his feet, silence reigning supreme between us.
Meanwhile, I was still trying to process what he’d just said. I pushed back up onto my own feet as well but immediately sat down on the couch when I realized the shock was making me dizzy.
“You can’t just say things like that,” I blurted out.
At the exact same time, he said, “We need to talk, Adeline.”
We both stopped. Then I tried again. “You just told my children that you love me.”
“Alex called me this morning,” he said. “I know what I told your children and I meant it, but we have bigger fish to fry.”
“Bigger fish to fry?” I scoffed, finally standing again. My head was still swimming, but I couldn’t remain seated when he was looking at me like he knew something I didn’t. “What are you talking about?”
I lowered my voice to a hiss. “We slept together last night, Zach. We’re getting married, we haven’t told them, and apparently, you love me. What could be bigger or more important than all of that?”
He stepped closer and gently took hold of my shoulders. “I need to go back to Chicago. Today. Right now. I should’ve been on my way already, actually.”
Something in his voice made my stomach twist and every other thought, as all-consuming as they’d been a moment ago, suddenly didn’t matter anymore as I searched his face, noticing tension there that obviously hadn’t been eased by the fact that we’d smoothed over the situation with the girls.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “What did Alex say?”
He blew out a heavy breath through his nose, then met my gaze again and this time there was ice cold steel in it. “Louis is contesting the divorce.”
The room tilted slightly beneath me, but my head started shaking. “No, he can’t. He signed the papers.”
“Yes, but then he found out that you’re marrying into my family, and now, he’s claiming you signed under pressure.”
I felt sick. Louis hadn’t cared a bit about my future or the girls when he’d taken off with his mistress. He hadn’t cared about where we went after we left the Hamptons and he sure as heck hadn’t felt a thing when he’d used my trust fund while I’d had to work my ass off to pay for the lawyers.
He just hadn’t given a shit until another, more powerful family had entered the picture. Now, he had an audience again and, more importantly, a shot at getting even more money than he already had.
I wrapped my arms around myself, staring up into Zach’s green eyes and not comforted at all by what I saw there. “What happens now?”
His hands tightened slightly on my shoulders and I knew he meant to ground me, but really, all I wanted was to turn back the clock.
Even just a few hours would be good, to early this morning when the sun hadn’t even risen yet, the sky only just starting to lighten when he’d slid into me for the final time.
The look in his eyes had been warm then, tender.
“Our attorneys think we can shut it down if we move fast,” he said, that steel glinting in his gaze even more obviously now. “They want us to get ahead of it.”
“How fast are we talking?”
“Fast enough that I need to get back to Chicago to find a better solution. I can’t do anything from here, but I’ve got this, okay?”
The air left my lungs in a rush, everything suddenly feeling fragile and temporary again. Like the happiness we’d all been feeling had only been on loan to us before reality had come crashing back in through the front door.
“Okay,” I said slowly, dragging in a deep breath in an attempt to regain control of myself.
The first times the rug had been yanked out from underneath me like this, I hadn’t had any options.
There hadn’t been any other choices available to me, but that was different now.
Zach was in our corner and I knew he would fight to his last breath to protect both me and the girls.
“Keep me updated and let me know if there’s anything I can do. How long do you think you’ll be gone?”